Tuesday, June 1
Mmmmmm, Designing Websites
Two things to mention on the above title:Firstly, I've just finished doing the new design for this blog on paper. I'm very pleased that I was able to get my ideas into a visual format, and I'm even happier with the outcome. If I can just translate it into code and graphic form, it will look very good indeed. Unfortunately, it also means a hell of a lot of work in the preparation stage. You'll see why when I get the design finished and up here. The coding itself shouldn't take too long, but it's going to involve a hell of a lot of taking photos and editing them on PaintShopPro.
The second reason why I use this title is because I came quite close yesterday evening to applying for a web design job. Just before we went to the pub (see, another thing that I managed to forget in yesterday's post!), I was on the University of London Careers Service website, hunting for summer jobs.
I thought that I had found my ideal place, working as a trainee web designer / developer for some random company in London. That would suit me just fine for the summer, and even as a career in the long run. I edited my CV, wrote them a cover letter, and was just about to email it to them when I noticed that under the 'Salary' heading in the ad, all they were going to pay was for travel expenses.
Aghast does not even begin to describe my reaction. Not only had I wasted half an hour of valuabe could-have-been-in-the-pub time, I was going to have to pass up this job. I need to work this summer purely for financial reasons. I'm not after experience in a particular field, or even in an interesting field, just a job that is going to pay me enough to pay off my overdraft and to save some money for September.
Expenses was not going to be enough. 'Twas with a heavy heart that I closed the Outlook Express window and went to the pub.
Well, a relatively heavy heart. I was going to the pub, after all.
And so on to today. Seeing as it was / is a Bank Holiday, I've done fuck all. Come to think of it, I haven't even left the house. Shame on me.
One annoying thing, actually. I was playing cm4 for a while this afternoon, just chilling to some tunes and meandering through a few months in the game, when the fucker crashed on me. There was no warning, just a sudden and instant return to the desktop. Of course, I hadn't saved my game, so around 2 hours worth of playing time (probably a little more) was wasted.
That truly was a complete and utter waste of time. Usually at the end of doing something like that, I have something to show for it, such as being further through the game... Not today.
Oh, and another annoying thing. Our house seems to have been invaded by the massed ranks of the common fly population. They seem to congregate in the middle of rooms and swirl around each other. It's very annoying, especially since it is the living room and my bedroom which seem most affected.
And no, before you ask, my room does not smell bad or have stuff festering in it. I am sufficiently houseproud to keep my room very clean and tidy, and I don't even store any food in it. You'd think the flies would raid the kitchen, because there is always a few day-old plates lying around in there.
There is, however, something very satisfying about leaping around a room with a fly swatter in hand, attacking these little black dots as they whizz past. It's so manly to creep up on a fly which is sitting alone on a wall, with a swatter in your hand and a bloodlust in your veins. My personal favourite is to kill them by clapping, because you get the nice little sploodge of blood onto your palms.
That sort of thing keeps me from going out at night and killing cats, which must be a good result. Flies don't count when being humanitarian and benevolent, in the grand scheme of things, to my mind.
So yeah, on that note...
